ASHERDASH - how it came to be...

It was first called “THE COUSINS” band because the members were all first cousins from the Brin family. The band did not progress enough since each member got their own thing like Freddie Lim who entered the police service, Jason pursuing a Veterinary Medicine course and the others got different jobs making them personally virtually making the band obsolete.

Two of the members however, decided to pursue their love for music and it was Freddie’s passion for music and Jayson’s unwavering desire to prove himself to his dad that triggered the beginning of ASHERDASH. The start-up however seemed improbable as the two are clueless as to would be willing to join them in their cause.

Freddie was assigned in the anti-narcotics department of Valenzuela City Police. It was one sunny afternoon when one of his “assets” named Bernard brought with him a guitar in their office. Their conversations and jamming with the guitar ended with a plan to form a band. Another acquaintance named Ryan had previous band experience wanted to join Freddie and Bernard’s plan. All three are guitarists so Ryan decided to give way and started learning to play bass instead.

Freddie introduced the two to his cousin Jayson so the four of them were able to start a band with Freddie as vocalist and lead guitarist, Jayson as drummer, Bernard on Rhythm Guitar and Ryan on Bass. They also added a female vocalist, Bernard’s niece.

They were able to play and perform on different occasions for about a year when Bernard became too busy and Freddie was not happy that he decided to replace him and find a keyboardist. With Bernard out of the group, his niece also decided to leave.

Freddie’s sister Felbie, who was also a police officer and was assigned in District Operations of the Northern Police District suggested a colleague named Jess who played with different bands before. It was sometime in June 2009 when Felbie said that his brother needed a keyboard player for his band. This made Jess curious and asked if he can jam with Felbie’s brother as he was also looking for a group.

One day, Felbie calls up Jess and asked if he was available for a jam with his brother’s band. The jam was a click and a band was born.

The group decided to take on a female vocalist in preparation for a variety act and found Joyce who was an aspiring singer and was always a contestant in singing competitions.

The band started to perform on stage with Joyce as their lead vocalist. They were accepted at the CROSSROADS Bar and Resto which allowed them to play in front of a live audience where they met bands like THE WORKSHOP and BLACKPIPE who eventually became their inspirations in bettering their craft.

The group was then named “THE PARTIMERS” but the owner of the Bar did not like the name and asked the group to look for another name they could be known for.

A lot o people made suggestions but the band didn’t like any of them. Freddie, the band leader wanted something “biblical” so he comes out with the word ASHER which supposedly means “God’s Blessing” but Jess suggested some modifications as the name seemed like somebody else’s name. He looked for a word that can be added to ASHER that will add more meaning to the group’s name and found DASH which means “force or power”. The term ASHERDASH therefore means “a powerful blessing from God!”

ASHERDASH played regular gigs and engagements until Joyce was hired as a pharmacist in a Drugstore. She decided to leave the band as the remaining four strived hard to survive as a band.

This was the time when Freddie stood up to the plate and brought out on the table his song writing skills. He laid before the band his own compositions and everything fell into place with the members’ musical collaboration they were able to make good arrangements for the songs until they decided to record their music.

At first, they went to a band rehearsal studio to record their music as it would be cheaper for them since their budget would not allow them to go with a professional recording studio. The efforts however were futile so they decided to look for a professional recording studio.

It was then that Freddie found the videos of their band inspiration BLACKPIPE in youtube.com with the tag “recorded at Sunset Records”. The band made efforts to find this recording studio using the Police PR of Freddie and Jess and the band proceeded to recording their music.

In the middle of their recording, the group decided to add a lead guitarist in order for Freddie to concentrate on vocals. As Ryan was a lead guitarist before, the group decided that he will take the place of Freddie on lead guitars. ASHERDASH found Jose, bass guitarist of TORCHBEARER and he was invited to join ASHERDASH.

As the band was about to finish their recordings, guitarist Ryan needed to leave the band as he will be migrating to Canada as his parents wanted him.

And so that’s the story… There were two, there were five and now there's Freddie, Jess, Jason and Jose… ASHERDASH!